“Sly Reynard’s brought home, while the horn sounds the call, And now you’re all welcome to Bachelor’s Hall; The savoury sirloin gracefully smokes on the board, And Bacchus pours wine from his sacred hoard. Come on, then, do honour to this jovial place, And enjoy the sweet pleasures that have sprung from the chase. Hark away! hark away! while our spirits are gay, Let us drink to the joys of next meeting day.”
On the occasion of Dibdin’s visit there were at the Hall more than the usual local notables, and Parson Stephens was amongst them. As a treat intended specially for Dibdin, the second course at dinner consisted of Severn fish, such as we no longer have in the river. There were eels cooked in various ways, flounders, perch, trout, carp, grayling, pike, and at the head of the table that king of Severn fish, a salmon.
_Dibdin_: “This is a treat, Squire, and I can readily understand now why the Severn should be called the ‘Queen of Rivers;’ it certainly deserves the distinction for its fish, if for nothing else.”
_Mr. Forester_: “Do you know, Dibdin, that fellow Jessop, the engineer, set on by those Gloucester fellows, wants to put thirteen or fourteen bars or weirs in the river between here and Gloucester; why, it would shut out every fish worth eating.”
“What could be his object?” asked Dibdin.
“Oh, he believes, like Brindley, that rivers were made to feed canals with, and his backers—the Gloucester gentlemen, and the Stafford and Worcester Canal Company—say, to make the river navigable at all seasons up to Coalbrookdale; but my belief is that it is intended to crush what bit of trade there yet remains on the river here, and to give them a monopoly in the carrying trade, for our bargemen would be taxed, whilst their carriers would be free, or nearly so.”
“We beat them, though,” said Mr. Pritchard.
“So we did,” added the Squire, “but we had a hard job: begad, I thought our watermen had pretty well primed me when I went up to see Pitt on the subject; but I had not been with him five minutes before I found he knew far more about the river than I did:
“‘I am no orator, as Brutus is, But, as you know me all, a plain and honest man.’”
_To Stephens_: “Will you take a flounder?—‘flat as a flounder,’ they say. I know you have a sympathy with flats, if not a liking for them.”